The Chocolate Cottage based in Grasmere has won a national award presented at the prestigious Institute of Enterprise and Entrepreneurs (IOEE) and the Small Firms Enterprise Development Initiative (SFEDI)  Awards, held this year at the House of Lords on Thursday 23rd October.

The annual awards bring together key figures from the small business, enterprise and skills sector in the UK, to celebrate excellence in enterprise.

The Chocolate Cottage was one of 6 businesses across the country nominated for the Get Started Award. The nominees have all successfully gained funding and mentoring support from Get Started to get their businesses up and running, and were shortlisted for demonstrating significant business success within their first two years of trading, along with a clear vision for the future.

Other nominees for the award included a bike business in Birmingham, a children's publishers in Kent, and a furniture design business in London.

Richard Barker and his wife, Angela, returned to the Lake District to set up The Chocolate Cottage in Grasmere after working in teaching elsewhere in the country for several years. Their range of high quality chocolate products have been a real hit with people in the area and are now attracting attention from people from outside the area who are ordering online to sample their delicacies. The business has developed a real name for itself and is starting to provide ranges to sell through other retailers, hotels and larger outlets.

The business accessed a Start up Loan through Get Started to help their business create a brand new website with e-commerce capability. Get Started also helped them receive mentoring support from Derek Gibbon from Lloyds Banking Group.

Sarah Trouten, Project Director of Get Started, said:

"The success of The Chocolate Cottage is testament to the hard work and skills of Richard and Angela. We have been thrilled to see the business go from strength to strength and we hope that this nomination will inspire other budding entrepreneurs to progress their business ideas.".

Richard from The Chocolate Cottage who attended the event to accept the award, said:

"A recent survey stated that at age 58, people were the most settled and satisfied they were going to be in their lives, well I wasn't , and wanted a challenge. Well what a challenge setting up our new venture and  chocolate making  has been.

"Year one has just been celebrated  with articles in The Sunday Times, quadrupled sales, and comments on Trip Advisor, such as: 'Absolutely fantastic' and 'forget the rest, these are the best chocolates we have ever tasted!'. We've even shipped our chocolates as far afield as Delaware in the States. We are now supplying local hotels and are about to go into a number of retail outlets with our 'Hand Made Chocolates' made solely on our premises".

"We are committed to the highest quality products with our base chocolate being brought in from Belgium our double cream sourced locally and additional ingredients coming from around the world. We are also continuing to develop  a range of gluten free and vegan chocolate which are becoming very popular.

To top our year off we are proud to win such a prestigious award and thank all those who have helped us reach our goals to this point."